A set of questions (Dimarzio UJs)

First off, I have done countless searches for this information, just to let you know.

on to the questions:

1. My SX '75 has pickups with raised, exposed polepieces. The problem is that when I play over either pickup, not only does it tear up my fingers but the strings actually hit the polepieces making a loud, ugly popping noise. I've tried lowering the pups as much as I can without a loss of volume and even raising the action a bit, which drives me nuts. when playing fingerstyle I can somewhat solve this problem, but slapping is totally out of the picture. I can't even attempt to because it sounds so horrible. I can't figure out how to fix this. any help?

2. Question one up there might not even be an issue depending on the answers to this one: I've been looking at Dimarzio UJs and I've done numerous searches here for information. Is it true that they have flush-mounted polepieces?

Also, since each pickup is an individual humbucker, is it possible to wire them with individual switches for series/parallel? My ideal setup would be Volume/Blend/Tone with two mini-toggles for the wiring switching.

DiMarzio Ultrajazz pickup poles are flush with the top of the plastic cover, so you wouldn't be hurting your fingers, but you still might get the 'string hitting pole' pop. Duncan 1/4 pounders are flush with the top of the actual pickup, so those are totally safe from the pop, but they are single coil, so no fancy wiring options there. The thing I've always done with Fender pickups is:

1. Cut two 3 1/2" x 1/2" strips of clear plastic (like from a ziplock baggie, or use mylar if you're a really aggessive player)

1. It's impossible to lower the pickups (which by your description are way too close to the strings) without loss of volume. You're going to have to live with that and either turn up your amp or get hotter pickups. You probably know this but just to be sure: the figures usually given as recommended pu-string distances are a) between the bottom of the string and the top of the pole piece and b) measured with the string fretted at the last fret. If you adjust it like that to reasonable values (as a starting point I normally go with 1/8" for the E string and 3/32" for the G and then re-adjust by ear) and your action is also reasonable (say 3/32" - E and 5/64" - G, standard Fender values), the string - pu distance should be more than enough to prevent the strings touching the pole pieces unless you pluck the strings insanely hard.

2. They look pretty much flush in the pictures in DiMarzio's page.

3. Yes, no problem to do that. The series/parallel switch for each pu would go immediately after the pu and from there to the blend control.

Depending on how fashion conscious you are you could just put a strip of electrical tape over yoru existing pickup. Tape is cheap and you can replace it when it gets dinged up.

The UJ is a humbuncking pickup and breaks out with 4 wires so you could have a ser/par switch for each pickup. It is common to tie the coils in series but you can definitely switch them.

The UJ documentaion shows which wire goes to which end of each winding. Keep that in mind because you can control not only the way they are wired, but the relative polarity.

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What advantage is there to controlling the polarity?

Clorenzo said:

1. It's impossible to lower the pickups (which by your description are way too close to the strings) without loss of volume. You're going to have to live with that and either turn up your amp or get hotter pickups. You probably know this but just to be sure: the figures usually given as recommended pu-string distances are a) between the bottom of the string and the top of the pole piece and b) measured with the string fretted at the last fret. If you adjust it like that to reasonable values (as a starting point I normally go with 1/8" for the E string and 3/32" for the G and then re-adjust by ear) and your action is also reasonable (say 3/32" - E and 5/64" - G, standard Fender values), the string - pu distance should be more than enough to prevent the strings touching the pole pieces unless you pluck the strings insanely hard.

2. They look pretty much flush in the pictures in DiMarzio's page.

3. Yes, no problem to do that. The series/parallel switch for each pu would go immediately after the pu and from there to the blend control.

Also, would having both pups in parallel sound like a regular jazz? would both pups in series sound as if I wired them together in series? I wonder if I should just wire the set together instead of each individual one.

Also, would having both pups in parallel sound like a regular jazz? would both pups in series sound as if I wired them together in series? I wonder if I should just wire the set together instead of each individual one.

Click to expand...

I don't know for sure but I guess they will sound closer to a regular jazz with the coils in series, which is the "normal" way of wiring them. Parallel will give a clearer, treblier tone. Each in series is not the same as together in series, which should give a louder, fatter tone.